"It's getting too hard."

<p>Some time ago I read an article dealing with food which said that as people age, and irrespective of financial position, they quite often revert to the simpler food which they ate and enjoyed when they were much younger - comfort food.<br>

My question is: could this yearning for the simpler life extend to manual cameras? In my case I believe so.<br>

Several days ago I upgraded my Canon 350D and bought a 50D. Yesterday afternoon I sat in a comfortable lounge chair. In my lap I had the 50D. In my right hand I had the 227 page instruction manual and in my left hand I was clutching the just arrived 269 page book from Amazon which promised to make it easier to understand the instruction manual.<br>

After reading for about ten minutes I heard myself mutter, "It's getting too hard."<br>

I closed my eyes and thought of the times in the sixties when, totally ignorant of the wonderful times that lay ahead with digital, I had pored over a tiny 28 page instruction booklet for my Voigtlander Prominent, had spent time composing, had used Kodak asa 25 slide film, and had waited one or two weeks for the slides to be developed. And I had been happy with my lot!<br>

As my thoughts returned to the present I looked across to the mantelpiece, and there, with several manual cameras, sat the Prominent, the satin chrome gleaming, just waiting to be used. I then looked at the 50D and thought "Another time" as I headed out the door with the Prominent to recapture the enjoyment of years ago. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>From the title I thought this was just another advertisement for Viagra! But yes, I know exactly where you're coming from. I dread the day when I become technologically challenged by one of life's modern conveniences and have to ask my grandchildren to "show me how it works"!</p>

<p>I bought a new DSLR and took it on a trip to the USA. It was a 13 hour flight from Sydney to LAX and when I arrived I still had not finished reading all of the fine print in the user manual! </p>

<p>Well said David,<br>

When I unpacked my Nikon D40 camera, and started to read the manual, I too thought of the simpler days when I bought my Pentax screw mount meter-less camera.<br>

But it is not just the new photographic equipment that all have large instruction manuals; I am a ham radio operator, and all of the new hand held radios, as well as all of the larger base station radios have anywhere from 80 to 300 pages of instructions that you can not make sense of unless you graduated from MIT.<br>

I think that tomorrow I will grab my old Nikon FE and my Exacta and go back to the fun times I use to have taken pictures.</p>

<p>That's a thoughtful post, David. I'm sure my 5D's can do things I've never discovered, mainly because I knew what I wanted the camera to do, sorted out what I needed and stuck with it. There are just so many options that I'll probably never touch. Perhaps it <em>is</em> just an age thing, but we've just replaced our domestic cordless phones and it's been a really tedious business getting them up and running with the various numbers inserted in the memories, and all the dial/ring/message options in place. What's more, they're uncomfortably small, and I have to do everything with a finger nail. I can't see many advantages over the 2005 models were were replacing, and they're certainly ergonomically less satisfactory.</p>

<p>Classic Manual Photography really is about taking photographs with stripped-down equipment, which requires an approach and attitude quite different from digital imaging. I enjoy both, but I enjoy the simplicity of film much more. It does transport me back to a younger and more leisurely era.</p>

I felt the same with my Pentax K20D - 280-odd pages, or about 230 more than I would ever wish to read.

There's an in-camera menu item that's seven pages long! My 645N's operating manual, on the other hand,

contains a whopping 78 pages - and I've never needed to open it, the camera's that straightforward.

 

Heh, I just found the manual for a ZI Contessa 35 - 32 pages, at least a quarter of which are devoted to photography tips.

<p>Maybe it's because I'm a bottle-fed baby from the throw-away age, but I find I don't have too much trouble with modern day conveniences. I admit I've only in the last few years bought a mobile phone (an old one at that). <br>

My parents were both born in WW2 and both have less affinity with things electronic, to the point where my mom doesn't dare to touch a computer, and my dad needs to call me for everything that pops up on the screen.<br>

I had no trouble with understanding the basics of my Epson R-D1 though. I've only opened the manual a few times to read up on sensor cleaning and changing 'film' types. I've had more trouble with a Minolta Dynax 500 film SLR a few years ago.</p>

 

<p>Usualy with any stuff these days including digital cameras there is a 'Quick Start Guide' or some such thing. Just get going with that and then add the twiddly bits later. It usually takes me about 6 months to get my head round all the bits of a digital camera. Just don't try it all at once.</p>

<p>The other side of the coin is all the young folk saying ' I don't get all these numbers round the lens - what do they mean?' It s just what you are used to.</p>

<p>I've read a couple of essays on this. Basically, new technology has reached a point where no users ever become 'experts' (of course there's the 1 in a million exception). We are all struggling with technology that does a bazillion things we have no clue how or even why it's capable of doing them. We develop new skills as a result: figuring out in a reasonably short period of time how to get these complicated technologies to do <em>what we need them</em> to do. They are overly-complex tools for the mostly simple tasks we have at hand. But like all tools, the more you use one, the more proficient you become, and a substantial segment of users continue to discover new features they simply can't live without (anymore), as new tasks are at hand or they discover better ways of performing the old tasks.</p>

<p>If that sounds like 'work', it's because it is, mostly. Even an sculptor chipping away at a block of marble with a hammer and chisel will refer to the mechanics of that as work. And he might resent the complexity of buying and learning to use a hybrid electronic/pneumatic CNC sculpting machine that will save him many thousands of hours of backbreaking labor, blisters and black-and-blue thumbs. But he will still buy the machine and learn how to use it, because it opens up new possibilities for his art. And it allows him to take commissions for work to be delivered on deadlines that are not humanly possible to meet without the new technology. </p>

<p>My digital camera, even though an 'antique', can do a whole bunch of stuff that none of my manual cameras can, and I realized how little of it's potential I was using when I read the essay by I forget whom on using electronic flashes with EOS cameras. But at the same time I also came to see that the Canon engineers had put in a bunch of stuff they <em>never disclosed to the public, </em>and even in 2000 when they released my D30, they knew the future of cameras was such that it was OK to not tell users how their cameras calculated flash exposures, because it was <em>too complicated </em>even for pro users. Sort of like how your calculator doesn't tell you how it reaches an answer when you ask it for the inverse cosine of a 14-digit number. You just trust that it did it's job and that the results are repeatable.</p>

<p>Yes there is something comforting in going from that to a fully-manual camera that only has 4 functions (aperture, exposure, film transport, and a focussing lens of some sort). Sort of like how I do take some pride in being able to calculate a cubic root with paper and pencil. It reassures me that technology hasn't turned me into a gibbering idiot.</p>

<p>To Rick Drawbridge - Thanks. I was frustrated at the time I wrote the post, but you have outlined the commonsense approach to take.<br>

To Jody S - Thank you for your thoughtful reply. New technology presents me with several problems. I am a firm believer in the "use it or lose it" approach, and because I am an amateur photographer with other interests I find that "working" at learning a task and then having to re-learn the same task a week or two later tends to take away the pleasure of photography. But using a manual camera or one of my EOS film cameras is like riding a bike - you never forget.<br>

Further, I am recently retired. This tends to cause a break with new technology. When a computer problem arises I am unable to turn to a colleague for an immediate solution. However, not being in the "rat race", I am able to pick and choose what I need at my leisure. I believe I still possess all of my grey cells but my enthusiasm for digital photography is beginning to wane and it is simply far easier to take the line of least resistance - film. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Remember the old digital watches with too many buttons and functions? I much simplified life by going back to analog.</p>

<p>I again like simplier foods, but I still use my Pentax and Rollieflex that I've had for ever. You take a few side trips in life but come back to what you really like.</p>

<p>David,</p>

<p>Have you heard the term "paralysis by over analysis"? I think the problem many people have is that they think they need to understand everything about a new piece of technology. You have got the right idea as far as simplifying. I think this is the approached one needs to take in our complicated world.</p>

<p>In 1965 my Argus C3 had no meter and was set manually. I used the sunny 16 method.</p>

<p>In 1972 my Canon FTb had a meter but could be set manually.</p>

<p>In 1980 My Canon A1 had many more exposure options but could be set manually.</p>

<p>In 1996 my Canon EOS Elan II had autofocus but could be manually focused.</p>

<p>My current DSLR has an unbelievable array of options but I can still use it like my Argus C3.</p>

<p>I think using older manual cameras allow us to see photography in its bare essence. Setting the camera is about shutter speed, aperture, and focus. We compose the picture and then snap the shutter. </p>

<p>When we use a modern camera we have to make sure we don't let the technology overwhelm the basic essence of photography. It hasn't changed. </p>

<p> </p>

I'm comfortable with, and use the most current technology with the exception of my phone. I love my ipod, and my Macbook Pro, and my HDTV. That said, I really enjoy using my old manual cameras. I find the ease of use and simplicty liberating. When I use my 4x5, my Rolleiflex or even my RB67, I feel more comfortable than with my digitals. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I learned photography, I learned on totally manual equipment and it's my comfort zone. I'm in control. I do use a handheld light meter to assist with exposure, but if it crapped out or the battery died I could press on and not miss a beat. It's almost theraputic or Zen like for me when I use a manual camera, and while my digitals are nice, I just don't feel the same way about them. And Bob, I've gone back to self wind and automatic watches as well. I like mechanical things. Cheers!

<p>Although I use the (almost) latest digital gear, I use my old 1960-70s manual gear probably 40% of the time. Isn't technology wonderful in that it gives one so many interesting and often quirky options, but you need to lift weights to pick up the instruction manual which often gives lots of details on the various features, but skips discussing the nuances in practical operation. And yet the end result is what --- we want our pictures to be at least as good as the ones produced with the old manual gear. The principles remain the same, but the toys are more complex. I am often amused by the questions relative newbies ask which would be well answered if they read their manuals...but like many have mentioned...100-300 pages is a lot to read to just take a "pitchur".<br>

I had the fun a couple of years ago of spending an afternoon with a young man in his early 20s, who had never snapped a picture with anything other than his phone. He was interested in someday getting a complex digital camera. I asked him to try an experiment with me, we spent about 10 minutes discussing exposure, aperture and shutter speed; how to focus a rangefinder, and what the "sunny 16 rule" was. I loaded a rangefinder with color film and we went out for a couple hours hike, and he snapped away at a variety of things until the roll was used up. We then took it to a 1 hour photo processor and both of us were totally amazed...out of 24 shots only 1 wasn't in focus, and all were well exposed. He told me, maybe he'd rethink the very expensive dslr for something easier to operate!</p>

About the simplest camera I own is the Handybox:

 

The complete manual - overview, exposure control and general photography tips:

Changing film (a picture could really have shortened this a lot):

 

I take it out when I really, truly don't want to care about the technology. The amazing thing is that this actually gives usable, occasionally beautiful images.

<p>When I get OLD old (how old IS that, btw?), I'm going to be a death-dealing ninja that will subsist on - well actually, I can't narrow that down yet, but felafels, rice and salad followed by lemon meringue pie sounds good.<br>

That is my plan. I've seen a lot of hobbled broken people walking around with their faces horizontal to the ground and I don't want to amble off slowly like that.<br>

Oh yeah, there was some analogy with photography. My mind will be that of the death-dealing ninja. I will have no need for cameras, but if I so choose, I will carry whatever takes my fancy on the day.</p>

<p>I'm not a particular fan of over using the microprocessor to create features. There are two problems with it. One, they generally require an elaborate menu tree and on small devices with a couple tiny buttons. Navigating menu trees is painful, non-standard, confusing and usually not rewarding. And two, they tend to add superfluous features. My cell phone for example has dozens of ways to set various ring tones for various different kinds of calls or callers. It has ways to decorate the border of the screen and so on. I have exactly ZERO interest in playing with that nonsense, but it makes the manual 225 pages long.</p>

<p>uPs(microprocessor) are great. But they should be used wisely and discretely to maximize their benefit. Unfortunately, too many designers once they have a uP installed insist on adding fluff so they can bring out a new model. Look at cameras now. They can take movies, they can add GPS info, and so on. Why not add Bluetooth? Why not add a cell phone module? Why not build in a GPS navigation screen? MP3 player? Digital TV tuner? FAX machine? Where do you stop? All of that is possible once you add a uP to the design. Most cameras today have not one but TWO uPs in the design. Look for an ever thicker manual!</p>

<p>I've been teaching 3 people at work how to get out of AUTO mode on their digital cameras. They are very frustrated by the constant search through menus just needed to set ISO, WB and aperture. I won't name the camera, but it features an aperture priority mode that you have to scroll menus EACH TIME you want to change the aperture! Now I think that's is simply horrible design. When her shooting screen comes up, it is filled with rows of icons and data adding to the confusion. In short, this camera is only useful on AUTO. None of my "students" can understand their manuals. Mainly because manuals are usually just a recitation of the menus. They don't explain why or when to use a feature, or what it really does. The manuals are not application oriented, they are navigation oriented.</p>

<p>I am not against technology - of course. But good design and bad design of these uP loaded devices is the difference between useful and un-useful technology.</p>

<p>Youtube " going back", by Phil Collins.<br>

New song.<br>

The song is sympathetic to your juxtaposition <br>

of the past, and the here and now.</p>

<p>When I get a new (to me) digicam I just spend the first couple of days P&S-ing with it, to get the feel of how it handles. Then I start to get into it a bit, exploring its capabilites in AP, SP, fully manual, etc. Eventually, without having opened the manual (if there's even one there for it) I know what it does and a large part of what it's capable of. Just learning by osmosis, really.<br>

I still drag out my FrankenGee 9x12/4x5 LF for a laugh, in preference, every time, though :)</p>